Dear friends,Hope the Spirit of Christmas celebration is coming to an end for this year. Also, I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year. As I already have mentioned, once again I would like to thank all of you for what you have been for and in the church. I was glad to see more people on the first of January, the mass of the Holy Day of obligation. It is really encouraging and good for you all.Personally, I would like to thank all of you who show much care and concern. Many of you had sent cards which exposed your affection towards me. I cordially appreciate that. Kindly keep me in your thoughts when you pray.I was watching a commercial on a cleaning product. A little girl slips and falls down on a muddy surface. She gets dirty with the mud all over her dress and starts crying. A little boy, presumably her classmate, sees that the girl is crying and becomes mad at the muddy surface. Then he takes revenge on the muddy surface by kicking it and because he kicked the muddy ground, he also gets dirty. Then the parent of the boy says, “The dirt is good” and the commercial ends. The dirt is good, because they are able to sell the product.When I was watching this, I was reminded of the lines of the Paschal Exultet, that goes like this:O truly necessary sin of Adam,destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!O happy faultthat earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!These lines indicate that the sin of Adam was necessary to bring Jesus to the earth, and the sin was a happy one (blessed one) because it required a glorious Redeemer. It is interesting to note this. The sin has become necessary and happy(blessed).To remove the dirt, the sin of Adam, there needed to be someone to become one with the dirt. Without touching the dirt, you can not properly clean the dirt/dust. That is why Jesus had to become one with the dirt, the human race. That is the Christmas at which Jesus became man to redeem man from his sin. This is what we need to celebrate, the mingling of the Divinity with the humanity. This mingling was not just mingling but it is mutual intertwining where our humanity is shared by Christ and His divinity is shared by us. That is the great reason for the celebration of the Christmas.Have a blessed Christmastide.Sincerely yours in the Child Jesus,

Fr. A. Antony

Comments are closed.

Pastor's ColumnPosted here is the weekly column featured in the bulletin of Saint Mary, Saint Michael & Saint Kilian parishes.